Mixed-symmetry fields in de Sitter space: a group theoretical glance

Abstract

We rederive the characters of all unitary irreducible representations of the $(d+1)$-dimensional de Sitter spacetime isometry algebra $\mathfrak{so}(1,d+1)$, and propose a dictionary between those representations and massive or (partially) massless fields on de Sitter spacetime. We propose a way of taking the flat limit of representations in (anti-) de Sitter spaces in terms of these characters, and conjecture the spectrum resulting from taking the flat limit of mixed-symmetry fields in de Sitter spacetime. We comment on a possible equivalent of the scalar singleton for the de Sitter (dS) spacetime.